The newly-formed Telangana Congress Legislature Party (CLP) on Monday resolved to authorise Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge to appoint its leader who would head the new government.

PCC chief A Revanth Reddy is the front-runner in the race for the chief minister given his popularity among majority of the newly-elected MLAs and the masses although there are a host of heavyweight leaders who are too happy to throw their hats in the ring.

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Earlier in the day, Karnataka PCC chief and party observer DK Shivakumar met a few of heavyweight MLAs, including Uttam Kumar Reddy, Komatireddy Raj Gopal Reddy and Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, separately to hammer out a consensus on the name of the chief minister.

At the first meeting of the CLP, PCC chief A Revanth Reddy moved a one-line resolution authorising the AICC president to choose the new CLP leader. It was seconded by other key leaders, including N Uttam Kumar Reddy, Bhatti Vikramarka, Komatireddy Venkata Reddy, Damodar Rajnarsimha and others.

“All the members of newly-elected legislature party unanimously authorised the AICC President Mallikarjun Khargeji to appoint the Congress Legislature Party leader,” said DK Shivakumar, adding that the authorisation would be sent to the AICC president and they would all abide by the high command’s decision. The CLP meeting at a hotel in Gachibowli was attended by all the 64 newly elected MLAs.

The Congress fought the elections keeping the PCC chief A Revanth Reddy and the previous CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, who also belongs to a SC community in the forefront but it was mostly Reddy’s show as he crisscrossed the state, addressing numerous public rallies and also matched KCR’s signature irreverent style of speech. He also took on Rao at Kamareddy though both ended up with a loss. Both Bhatti and Reddy had undertaken padayatras across the state soon after Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra concluded to keep up the momentum in the poll bound state.

The PCC chief also has the backing of most MLAs but he is comparatively a newbie who joined from TDP and the senior leaders of the party such as former PCC chief N Uttam Reddy who would also like to take their chances.

A Congress delegation also met Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan last evening and kept her in the loop about the developments. Although Revanth Reddy had earlier announced that the swearing-in ceremony would take place on 9 December, the birthday of former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, but the party is unlikely to wait till then and would prefer to form the government at the earliest.